


Yesterday's Dreams

by lolcano



Series: Fathers and Children [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: 1930s, Childhood Friends, Family Drama, Friendship, Gen, jewish!bucky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:11:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lolcano/pseuds/lolcano
Summary: A story about Steve, Bucky and his father. Vignettes from a time long past.





	1. Prologue

Bucky Barnes' father was born in Romania, and from what his children gathered his time there had not been a particularly pleasant one. This however was purely speculative, gleaned through obscure references and off-hand comments, because about this distant country he never spoke; the past to him was dead and instead he threw himself thoroughly and enthusiastically into the future, that is, to America, the land of the future, progress, freedom and democracy, the philosophy of which he embraced with his whole entire being. He put behind him language and religion of his past life, even his own name, re-inventing himself as Jack Barnes and when the time came to name his first-born son he chose something indisputably American, so that he named his son James Buchanan after the 15th president of the United States, and he named his first-born daughter Edith Elizabeth, after Edith Wilson the first lady, after which his wife became exasperated and told him enough already, you've proved your patriotism, and went on to name the next two children Rebecca and Rose.

This story was related to Steve through his best friend, the first born son himself, James Buchanan Barnes, who often told the story in order to explain his nickname "Bucky", which was short for "Buchanan", after James Buchanan the 15th president of the United States. As for Bucky, he had heard the story from his mother. She had always told it as a funny story; Bucky claimed his mother was very funny but Steve was not at first able to reconcile that image with the solemn, dark-haired woman he saw in front of him when he came to visit his friend's house. She seemed mournful, prone to humming lachrymose melodies, and never seemed to smile, so that Steve was a little afraid she did not like him, that he was an outsider, and that she didn't like him hanging out around her house every evening, as he often did, visiting his friend, because although she was perfectly polite and tolerated his presence, she never quite seemed pleased to see him.

And he was worried because if she didn't like him, then he couldn't come over to visit anymore and not only would that deprive him of his best friend in all the world but also this wonderful apartment of theirs, which was full of interesting things that he had never seen before. The tone and character of his friend's entire neighborhood was entirely different than his own. He liked to watch the old men with long black beards sitting outside in the yard, their voices rising and falling in strange incomprehensible melodies, he liked the dim glow of candlelight on Friday evenings, when with a billowing motion Hannah Barnes would carefully set out a new white table cloth and smooth it over the table, carefully and conscientiously laying out the cloth like a prayer, like the prayer that would soon follow, prayers she murmured obstinately all on her own despite her husband's belligerent disinterest, her husband who had declared himself an atheist.

But besides all that, there was in the front room of his friends dwelling, a large drafting table, and this was what fascinated Steve the most. He liked the smoothness of its expanse, the way it gently sloped upwards, vast and empty, ready to be filled, with anything and everything. One day his friend's mother, noticing his interest, told him the following story. Hannah Barnes was quite fond of stories, although unlike her husband her stories were limited to one of two categories: 1) Folklore and 2) Family history, which she told mostly in Yiddish and yet this story she told in English solely for Steve's benefit. It fell into the latter category of family history, and went something like this. One day she had told her husband to go and pick up some meat from the store. Instead he had returned with a friend and the table. "My my," she said, "That's the strangest chopped liver I've ever seen." Jack rubbed the back of his head ruefully and explained that well, he just couldn't resist, you didn't get an offer like this everyday, he had run into a friend who had offered him the drafting table for an excellent price, he would have been a fool to pass it up, and so on and so on. "Perfectly right," Hannah agreed solemnly, "You can't let such an offer slip by," the punch line being of course that neither of them knew how to draw in the slightest, or had any use for a drafting table at all, nor did they really have, despite the supposed great deal, the money to spare for it.

She would often repeat this story, emphasizing especially the final two points, nominally to Steve but really it was directed to her husband, who would laugh and say, “Well, it turned out all right, didn’t it?” usually as he sat there at that very table drawing, and Hannah Barnes would just shake her head sternly but her eyes would be twinkling, and that's how Steve realized that despite their differences the two of them truly were fond of each other, and that perhaps Hannah Barnes had a sense of humor after all.

Despite the obvious set-back of not knowing how to draw, Jack had decided to not let that impede him. Not long after his hasty purchase, he began to teach himself how to draw the same way he had learnt to speak English back in the day - through comics strips. He applied himself diligently to this task so that when he came home from another long day at the factory, no matter how tired he was, he would lay down a new white piece of paper and begin to draw. He would draw Popeye, Lil Abner, Nancy, and all the other familiar characters. He would draw a line and then another line, a line and a line - and suddenly it was a human being! Out of quick subtle movements of the hand, entire towns and landscapes would arise and Steve would watch, with awe and wonder, as out of nothingness came form. Sometimes Jack let Steve practice with him. He showed him how to hold the pencil and guided him through its strokes. Steve would sit totally engulfed in his work, almost swallowed up by the size of the table itself. Jack would praise his efforts enthusiastically no matter what he drew, but then, Steve could not quite capture the same momentum of style and movement that his friend's father had. He would draw characters in the midst of the most wonderful actions, in the strangest, most peculiar scenes, things that Steve never would have even begun to think of. He would show them to his children and they would laugh. “What is he doing?!” they would say. “What’s going on?” And Jack would say, “Well, let me tell you!” And he would explain in great detail the events that had led up to this scene, telling such wild elaborate stories that his small audience would be peeling with laughter at the end. He told stories about cowboys and Indians, fighter pilots, long-forgotten civilizations in the depths of darkest Africa, spaceships and aliens and above all brave little boys and girls who had amazing adventures. And when he reached the end of the story he would ask, “And what happens next?” “They get into a rocket ship!” his son might say, “They travel to the moon!” And so the next time he would draw the characters on the moon and they’d be fighting space pirates or meeting a hidden civilization of aliens who would crown them as their king. It was even better than the radio!

Because the radio had tons of exciting stories, but Jack's were even better. When Bucky or Steve couldn’t wait to hear the latest adventure of the Lone Ranger or Buck Rogers, when they could not wait for the cliffhanger to be resolved in a week, they went directly to Jack who told them, as he put it, the true story, which as time went on became substantially different from the original. In his version, for example, Buck Rogers was a soldier of the great war, a member of the 107th infantry, and one day while making a daring raid deep within enemy territory he had encountered a cave with mysterious fumes which knocked him out (his wife and child back in America thought he was dead, but he wasn't really) and when he woke up it was the year 2450! He soon got caught up in a galactic adventure, teaming up with a young plucky alien girl and the sophisticated woman leader of France to save the day from peril!  And if the little alien girl happened to be remarkably similar to his daughter Rebecca and the future president of France almost like Edith Elizabeth then that was just a funny coincidence, and of course Buck Rogers could not help but be similar to Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, it was in the name, after all.

What exciting adventures they had, in that little apartment building in Brooklyn! Steve would listen to these stories and the constant noise of the tenement would fade away and they would forget about the badly-played piano next door, the arguments shouted across the yard, the distant slamming of doors somewhere high above them as Mr. D* returned home drunk once again and his wife screeched at him, the noise of a distant radio, all the drifting sounds of a city that was always moving and being, cramped together like a straightjacket. Instead they are in the year 2541 as Buck Rogers finds himself under attack by the evil alien overlords, and Steve would come up with a plan and the strong and heroic Buck Rogers, who had never been sick a day in his life, would lead his troops out from the jaws of death to victory. Or he would save the day with some amazing new piece of future technology. Bucky dreamed up all sorts. His eyes would shine as he described the beautiful cities of the future – “They’ll have pneumatic tubes which deliver you instantly to your destination! The cities will be so tall, you'll need flying machines to reach the top!” His mother would listen from the kitchen. She stood there with her sleeves rolled up and elbow deep in water as she cleaned, and would occasionally make a wry interjection when the plot became too unbelievable. She didn't understand fantasy. And as time wore on the interruptions became more frequent.  Edith Elizabeth would try to one-up her brother and Becca would say, "Aw just leave it alone, why'dya always have to act so smart?" and the kids would start fighting and Rosie, still a toddler, would start crying and then that was it for the evening, but tomorrow morning Jack would come home and spread out a new piece of paper and they would watch as he dipped his pen into the black ink and something new and amazing would emerge.

Steve loved that little apartment room full of people. It didn't matter the noise, it didn't matter the chaos. The noise wrapped around him like a blanket. He wanted to stay there forever, watching his best friend's father draw, his broad back leaning over the table, with smooth elegant strokes, to create, out of nothing, something beautiful and wonderful, wonderful as them all being together in this room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, this was a lot of work. I rewrote this chapter a lot, and perhaps I will end up writing it again, but for now, thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter 2

It was October when he first heard he news. That day the wind whipped through the streets and blew up paper into the corners, and the sky was a grim grey line cut into the tops of the buildings, rolling ominously over the school boys on the pavement below. School had just let out and already a group of boys were planning to head out to the movies. The ringleader was a kid from Bucky's street, a boy named Davey, whom Steve didn't like because he used to scam other kids at marbles, and who didn't like Steve because Steve had called him out on it. Bucky knew all this but when he heard that they were going to the movies he said, "Hey, that sounds swell, mind if we join you?" and Davey said "Sure," because they were from the same street and often played baseball together and their mothers were good friends, even though Bucky had stopped playing with him out of principle after Steve and Davey had fought. "Why'dya do that," Steve whispered to Bucky, "I don't wanna go the movies today." Bucky just shrugged. "Go home then," he said and so Steve knew that something was up.

And so even though he was still feeling sick he squared himself up to face the wind and the cold and the long trek through the winding streets to the movie theatre, even though all he wanted to do was go home and sleep. He had been sick the last few days with a fever, he was often sick in those days, and although he had told his mom he was all better, solely so he wouldn't miss another day of school, the truth was he still hadn't fully recovered and had gotten through the day only due to sheer stubbornness. He forced his legs to keep moving as the others the others went ahead. Bucky was already ahead with the others. He was laughing and talking with the boys as if they had always been the best of friends. That's how Steve knew something was wrong. Whenever something bothered Bucky he would surround himself with people, filling himself with words, laughing and socializing as if he didn't have a care in the world, almost defiantly, as if to prove he didn't have a care in the world, even though he did, and Steve knew that he did, although what exactly it was he didn't know. Steve tried to catch his eye but he just turned and talked to Davey and Steve couldn't get in a word edgewise. It wasn't until they reached the store and the boys stopped for candy that he was able to catch up.

"Aren't you gonna buy something?" Steve asked. Bucky was standing near the door of the store apart from the others, an odd, unfamiliar expression of regret and longing on his face that he quickly hid when he noticed Steve looking at him.

"Nah," he said, "I ain't hungry."

Which Steve knew was just an excuse, and probably he just didn't want to spend the money, although that had never stopped him before. Both of them agreed that sometimes even when you are poor you sometimes have to spend money on pleasant things, just for the sake of it, and besides, at least Bucky's father still had a job, unlike many others at that time. But perhaps things had changed. When they arrived at the theatre and they all lined up at the ticket counter, forking over their dimes one by one, Bucky stood there with his hands in his pocket, not moving forward even when it was his turn. "Next!" said the man at the ticket counter and Bucky pulled out his dime and examined it carefully, watching it gleam as he turned it in the palm of his hand. He rolled it in his hand and finally, slowly, he seemed to reach a decision. He closed his fingers over it. He slipped it back into his pocket and looked around. "Geez," he said to Steve, noticing the paleness of his face, "Are you feeling all right? Who let you out of the door this morning?"

"Aw, I'm fine."

"You look like death itself pal. Maybe we should skip the movie."

After coming all this way, Steve would have rather just gone in and seen the movie, but now Bucky was adamant. He waved at the other boys who were waiting to go on without him, and they shrugged and went in so that the two friends were left alone on the pavement outside the theatre. "Let's go to your house," said Bucky, "You shouldn't be out in this weather." As if on cue the wind howled once again and it began to drizzle lightly as they walked together down the street. They hurried down the street, stopping every once in a while for Steve to catch his breath.

"Geez!" said Bucky, as his friend paused to cough violently, "You're hacking up a lung. You never should have come to school today."

“You're the one,” coughed Steve, “Who wanted to go to the movies genius. Just tell me what’s going on.”

"What? Nothing's going on! Geez! I'm sorry, all right! We never should have come."

"Look,” said Steve, “When did it happen?" He coughed one last time and then stood up and tried to pretend as if nothing had happened but his voice ended up coming out hoarse nonetheless.

"Just what do you think happened, pal?" said Bucky, “Look at Mr. Sherlock Holmes here. You don't even know what happened!"

"No need to get sore, Buck. Something happened. Did your dad get laid off? If so it's not anything to - "

"Nah!" interrupted Bucky, then announced majestically, "He quit!"

"Quit?!" exclaimed Steve.

“Of his own free will!”

Now that was something. Being laid off was nothing to be surprised about, at least in this economy, but to quit when you already had a perfectly well-paying job?  Steve marveled at the revelation.

“All right,” he agreed at last, “Let’s go to my house. You can help me catch up with school. I missed two days, after all.”


End file.
